Musical Compass

I was walking by a storefront that had a TV in the window of some kind, and it was playing a music video. There were a lot of digital effects changing the body of the person singing, and the lyrics were something along the lines of "we all know the technology is being used to make people famous, but the real genius is the people at Mackie and Ableton" (or something of that sort).

After seeing this I inquired from a guy nearby where that song came from.

guy: "It was on VNV Nation's 16th release."

me: "16th? That sounds kind of high, I don't follow their music. What year do you think it is? I'm from 2008...Earth...do you know what that is?"

Note
Wikipedia says they have 6 studio releases as of now.

I don't remember what he said in response to that.

me: "Hmm, maybe it's best to calibrate on recent music releases, or things you think are recent. Ummm...how about this one, Coldplay - Viva La Vida, just came out this year. Heard it?"

guy: "No."

As I began to kind of hum and sing it, I was able to sort of invoke the whole song in the room I was now in. People seemed to enjoy it. It seemed I could hear one person singing along.

me: "Hey, have any of you heard this before?"

One old man at a table who had his head down raised his hand, but continued looking at something on the table.

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